


Pieces to Call a Whole

by deathwailart



Series: Damhnait Mahariel [7]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening
Genre: Confessions, F/F, Femslash February, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-28
Updated: 2015-02-28
Packaged: 2018-03-15 15:25:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3452186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathwailart/pseuds/deathwailart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With Velanna at her side, Damhnait Mahariel almost feels as though she's whole.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pieces to Call a Whole

It's strange for her to think that not even two years ago she could been described as gentle, as soft in an affectionate way, at least as soft as a Dalish hunter could afford to be. Back before the mirror. Before losing Tamlen. Before Marethari sent her away as if it was a kindness. Before becoming a Grey Warden. It's almost as if she split down the middle to leave two Damhnaits, the one with a clan and a life and all her silly hopes and dreams for little hunters, who thought she knew anger. Then there's this one, the after Damhnait. Always after, after the ruins, after the Taint, after losing everything, after being nothing, fighting and scraping when most days she didn't care, mired in all Ferelden's problems, so much depending on her. Perhaps if it had beep her choice to go or if Tamlen had somehow still been alive, if she'd at least known what had become of him then it would have been easier, maybe they could have gone together. He'd been turned into one of those things, that meant he'd survived, that Marethari's magic would have worked, that the Joining would have meant they could fight side by side against it all. Then she wouldn't be here, wondering why she even accepted a post beyond having nothing to go back to. She wasn't the Damhnait her clan knew, she might as well be here, killing creatures often enough to let the anger simmer rather than boil over.  
  
Here she has Velanna too, unexpected but not unwelcome, Velanna just as sharp and bitter as she is herself, the first person she's allowed so close since Tamlen and that night with Morrigan, allowed Velanna into her bed and, more importantly, into her heart.  
  
She never goes anywhere without Velanna now, both of them talking in as much elven as they can even if there are others with them. She doesn't care what anyone thinks of that because she's missed this so much, something familiar and something that's just like her, someone reeling from the same losses and they come together at first in an angry clash of lips and teeth, leaving one another bloodied but it wakes up some part of Damhnait that had fallen silent since she'd shouted for Tamlen not to touch that mirror and the haze that had followed, Duncan's voice and Marethari's and an aching sort of loss. She isn't alone in her bed now, Velanna stretched next to her and in the dark their eyes glow bright, no candles or firelight needed as they murmur softly to one another and Damhnait wishes for trees and wind, for the creaking of aravels rather than these walls of stone that surround them. One day she'll leave, she'll slip away. Velanna will come too, she's sure of it.  
  
"Will you recruit more elves?" Velanna asks her when they return from Amaranthine and Velanna's encounter with the city elves who stared at her the same way so many did when Damhnait first ventured there, the same as they all did in Denerim's alienage and so many other places. At least then there was the Blight and a brewing civil war to distract them and a Dalish elf had not been hailed their great hero.  
  
"Only if they chose it and even then, perhaps not. I told you how I became a Warden and you...you made that choice yourself but I wouldn't subject anyone to this life. I've told you how we're going to die if we make it that long." One of the best things about Velanna is that she never has to pretend to be something that she's not, she can be as blunt as she likes and Velanna will do just the same and welcome it. Unlike so many other people Damhnait has dealt with since leaving her clan. "I wouldn't let a flat ear join, not-" She cuts herself off because it's so easy to talk to Velanna that she realises how close she is to confessing something she hasn't told a single soul.  
  
"Why not?" Velanna takes hold of her wrist to keep her in place, ignoring the hiss Damhnait lets out. "Why not a flat ear?"  
  
Damhnait mutters to herself, free hand pinching the bridge of her nose. Velanna knows most everything else, she'd understand the anger Damhnait can't let go of, the burning resentment in her belly. "I told you that my father was the Keeper of my clan before Marethari," she begins, Velanna nodding and she's glad that Oghren and Nathaniel went on ahead of them to the Vigil; Nathaniel is more perceptive than any shem she's met and well, Oghren has an imagination after all. She leads them away from the road, to a felled tree where they sit, sheltered from the wind. "My mother came from another clan, she was a hunter, so I was told. They met and fell in love, so Ashalle told me, but it wasn't approved, I don't know why, she only told me after-" her breath catches the way it always does when she has to say that name, still so sure she'll see him again even though she kissed his cold dark lips and heard his anguished confession, the taste of rot in her mouth for weeks after. "After Tamlen. She wanted me to know. They met in secret and my mother was pregnant, like something out of a story but them...then bandits came. Humans. City elves," she almost spits the last two words, catching sight of her feral snarling face in Velanna's eyes that widen in shock before her features harden to match Damhnait's. "My father was killed, my mother was wounded but she lived long enough to have me and then she just left. She was grieving and she just walked away from everyone, from everything and left me behind."  
  
Perhaps if she had found out when she was that softer girl she would cry by now. Of course she would have been angry too but she would have tucked herself against Tamlen, whispered the words into the soft skin of his throat as he held her and crooned, said just the right things. Velanna takes her hand and squeezes tight, tight enough to hurt, to anchor Damhnait as bile scorches up her throat, sharp and acrid on the back of her tongue.  
  
She swallows and it aches. Taking a breath makes her think there's a great weight on her chest, slowly crushing her.  
  
"I wish I had the strength to do as she did, after Tamlen."  
  
Velanna has no reply, only her touch, only her silence. It is enough and Damhnait can give her a knife's edge smile once she's able to stand, another little reminder that she's not alone, that somehow, despite it all, that she's still enough to be called whole.


End file.
